Life and Weather are the Enemies of Training

I had two great rides last weekend and one great ride Monday. And the rest of the week? A little bit of trainer time to practice pedal strokes and heart rate management. That's it. Maybe 10-20 miles the rest of the week. Hugely disappointing.

The reasons on retrospect are clear. First, was the weather that was not just cold, but it was damn cold. This was the kind of cold that damages exposed skin or induces things to fall off. Well it does to those of us in the South. I'm a cold weather wimp. I'm ok admitting it. I'd rather ride hours in 105 degrees than 2 hours in 35 degrees.

The second reason was life schedules that collide and the early onset of darkness this time of year. January and February are my least favorite months because of weather and light, but they are also busy times for large families. I use Google Calendar to keep up with it all. I have 5 individual calendars: 1) my work calendar, 2) my wife's work calendar, 3) my three kid's calendar, 4) her two kids calendar, and finally the new calendar-my training and race calendar. We as parents have demanding schedules, but add in two elite soccer player schedules, a basketball player, a competitive cheerleader, and our youngest that is a girl scout and wants to do gymnastics and you have the swirling vortex of chaos. This means my wife and I are frequently horse trading time for her to work out and run and I can ride. I'll admit that I probably come out ahead on total time to train.

What's the lesson of the week? PLANNING. I need to plan my training time ahead of time based on the projected weather and adjust to inside if needed. I probably also need to try to train early in the morning some. I've not been good at getting that done. On the plus side, the weather in eastern North Carolina is supposed to be spectacular this weekend. However, my sons have games 4 soccer games and one basketball game. Looks like there will be more juggling.